NORTH KINGSTOWN — Meet Gilbert Stuart. He exaggerated all kinds
of stories. He drank too much. He had a bad temper. He was said to keep a
paid portrait if he didn’t like the person he painted.

“He’s such a fun character to play because he’s so flawed,” said
David Ely, the actor who will portray the colonial artist Sunday at the
Gilbert Stuart Museum and Birthplace’s annual Spring Fair. “He’s got a
lot to say. He’s blunt.”

Stuart is best known for his three portraits of
George Washington. He was a well-known portrait artist painting several
crowned heads (Stuart would say he painted them all) in Europe. But
because he lived beyond his means, the artist, whose work is seen by
millions each day on the $1 bill, died broke.

For the last 15 years, Ely has put on his 18th-century Stuart costume bringing history to life at the museum’s fair.

The museum, which was Stuart’s birthplace, was
originally a snuff mill his father operated. The mill failed, Ely said,
because glass bottles for distributing the snuff became too expensive to
purchase. Coincidentally, Stuart ended up with an addiction to snuff
that lasted a lifetime.

“He had a huge snuff box,” Ely said. “He left it at a friend’s [who] had a servant bring it back in a wheelbarrow as a joke.”

“He’s so opinionated. It makes people react
toward him,” he said. “I’ll look at the museum and say, ‘Can you believe
someone as talented as me started out in this hubble?’”

Before coming to Sauderstown, Ely gets into
character by reviewing a book about Stuart, refreshing his memory of his
favorite moments of Stuart’s early life in Newport and Narragansett and
his time in Europe.

In Stuart’s time, painters were expected to
beautify their subjects, Ely said. Stuart ignored this unwritten rule
and painted people as they looked – all flaws included. Ely shared a
story of a man who brought in his wife for Stuart to paint. The man
wasn’t happy with the finished product. In a now famous line, Gilbert
responded, “What a business is this of a portrait painter! You bring him
a potato and expect he will paint you a peach.”

While Stuart was in Europe, he studied under
painter Benjamin West. Due to his reckless spending, creditors were soon
after him and threw him into a prison in Ireland. Word soon spread of
Stuart’s jail stint. Royalty paid Stuart to paint them while they sat
outside his jail cell. According to Ely, Stuart told people he painted
his way out of jail.

Once free, Stuart returned to America and finally
got the chance to paint the one person he knew would be his cash cow –
George Washington. Ely said the relationship between Washington and
Stuart was strange and many different stories and viewpoints about their
interactions exist. Stuart painted three portraits of Washington but
decided he wanted to keep the originals to make copies for money. Time
after time, Stuart would tell Washington and his wife, Martha, he was
not finished. Finally, he gave them a copy. Stuart, Ely said, would say
Washington wanted him to make copies of the portraits, which was a lie.

Around twenty years ago, the late Rhode Island
painter Maxwell Mays, who was known for his historical paintings of
Rhode Island, saw Ely performing in a state history series where actors
go into schools to perform as historical characters. Mays told Ely he
wanted him to perform as Stuart. Ely was immediately attracted to
Stuart’s unique personality and has created that character ever since.
When he isn’t being Stuart, Ely teaches theater at Lincoln School in
Providence.

Ely is looking forward to Sunday and hopes a
Washington impersonator will be there, so they can humorously engage. He
may bring people into the museum and talk about some of the portraits,
including one where Washington is standing by a horse’s behind.

“There’s an obvious message being sent [by Stuart] that George Washington is a horse’s ass,” Ely said.

Besides the bragging, boasting and outspokenness
that Ely gets to display, the fun part, he said, is seeing the audience
change their mindset when they realize how people thought in the
18th-century. Everything Ely does in his Stuart performance is
improvisation, and he is always willing to engage with anyone who shows
interest.

“I want them to encounter someone who is a
colorful character,” said Ely. “I want them to have a stimulating
interaction with the charter.”